$58.20

Overview
The Arduino Mega 2560 is a microcontroller board based on the ATmega2560 (datasheet). It has 54 digital input/output pins (of which 15 can be used as PWM outputs), 16 analog inputs, 4 UARTs (hardware serial ports), a 16 MHz crystal oscillator, a USB connection, a power jack, an ICSP header, and a reset button. It contains everything needed to support the microcontroller; simply connect it to a computer with a USB cable or power it with a AC-to-DC adapter or battery to get started. The Mega is compatible with most shields designed for the Arduino Duemilanove or Diecimila.

The Mega 2560 is an update to the Arduino Mega, which it replaces also has the following new features:1.0 pinout: added SDA and SCL pins that are near to the AREF pin and two other new pins placed near to the RESET pin, the IOREF that allow the shields to adapt to the voltage provided from the board. In future, shields will be compatible both with the board that use the AVR, which operate with 5V and with the Arduino Due that operate with 3.3V. The second one is a not connected pin, that is reserved for future purposes.
Stronger RESET circuit.
Atmega 16U2 replace the 8U2.

Summary

Microcontroller: ATmega2560

Operating Voltage: 5V

Input Voltage (recommended): 7-12V

Input Voltage (limits): 6-20V

Digital I/O Pins: 54 (of which 15 provide PWM output)

Analog Input Pins: 16

DC Current per I/O Pin: 40 mA

DC Current for 3.3V Pin: 50 mA

Flash Memory: 256 KB of which 8 KB used by bootloader

SRAM: 8 KB

EEPROM: 4 KB

Clock Speed: 16 MHz

Power
The board can operate on an external supply of 6 to 20 volts. If supplied with less than 7V, however, the 5V pin may supply less than five volts and the board may be unstable. If using more than 12V, the voltage regulator may overheat and damage the board. The recommended range is 7 to 12 volts.

Memory
The ATmega2560 has 256 KB of flash memory for storing code (of which 8 KB is used for the bootloader), 8 KB of SRAM and 4 KB of EEPROM (which can be read and written with the EEPROM library).

Input and Output

Serial 0: (RX) and 1 (TX);

Serial 1: 19 (RX) and 18 (TX);

Serial 2: 17 (RX) and 16 (TX);

Serial 3: 15 (RX) and 14 (TX). Used to receive (RX) and transmit (TX) TTL serial data. Pins 0 and 1 are also connected to the corresponding pins of the ATmega16U2 USB-to-TTL Serial chip.

External Interrupts: 2 (interrupt 0), 3 (interrupt 1), 18 (interrupt 5), 19 (interrupt 4), 20 (interrupt 3), and 21 (interrupt 2). These pins can be configured to trigger an interrupt on a low value, a rising or falling edge, or a change in value. See the attachInterrupt() function for details.

PWM: 2 to 13 and 44 to 46. Provide 8-bit PWM output with the analogWrite()function.

SPI: 50 (MISO), 51 (MOSI), 52 (SCK), 53 (SS). These pins support SPI communication using the SPI library. The SPI pins are also broken out on the ICSP header, which is physically compatible with the Uno, Duemilanove and Diecimila.

LED: 13. There is a built-in LED connected to digital pin 13. When the pin is HIGH value, the LED is on, when the pin is LOW, it's off.

TWI: 20 (SDA) and 21 (SCL). Support TWI communication using the Wire library. Note that these pins are not in the same location as the TWI pins on the Duemilanove or Diecimila.

There are a couple of other pins on the board:

AREF. Reference voltage for the analog inputs. Used with analogReference().

Reset. Bring this line LOW to reset the microcontroller. Typically used to add a reset button to shields which block the one on the board.

Programming
The Arduino Mega can be programmed with the Arduino software (download).
The ATmega2560 on the Arduino Mega comes preburned with a bootloader that allows you to upload new code to it without the use of an external hardware programmer. It communicates using the original STK500 protocol.
You can also bypass the bootloader and program the microcontroller through the ICSP (In-Circuit Serial Programming) header using Arduino ISP or similar;